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莱因霍尔德的cartesian elementary philosophy
Reinhold takes his bearings from a Cartesian standpoint: (1) In order to achieve ultimate clarity in philosophy, one must secure a principle to which all must agree. (2) This basic principle must be self-evident in the sense that it discloses a basic fact,and describes it without reference to anything apart from that fact. (3) Accordingly, the fact from which philosophical reflection proceeds, and the proposition that describes this fact, must be immediately accessible. We should have no need to invoke additional procedures in order to determine both that the fact is there, and that it is, indeed, the fact the proposition describes. The proposition would not be sufficiently clear, and it might incorporate something arbitrary, if it was dependent on additional philosophical reflection. For such dependence would naturally enough precipitate new controversies. (4) The upshot of this is that one proposition alone should be needed to express this fact, which must be simple,easily accessible,and easily expressible.If there were a plethora of basic facts, we would have to determine the relationship among them. This would necessitate the introduction of further principles to elaborate the nature of this relation,and so forth.But then we would fall short of ultimate clarity, entering, instead, into an infinite regress. So to preserve clarity, the fact of which we are speaking must be one that is presupposed by all other facts to which we might possibly refer, and, accordingly, be presupposed by all other propositions. Only in this way can we arrive at a philosophical theory that is both general and beyond all philosophical controversy. In the terms of this single proposition, and its basic fact, we must be able to understand everything we want to know philosophically.